Kingston rally backs immigration reform

Saturday

Jun 15, 2013 at 2:00 AM

KINGSTON — Friday was Flag Day, a nearly forgotten national holiday that organizers of a rally and march through Kingston used as the theme for a protest on behalf of immigration reform Friday evening.

BY JEREMIAH HORRIGAN

KINGSTON — Friday was Flag Day, a nearly forgotten national holiday that organizers of a rally and march through Kingston used as the theme for a protest on behalf of immigration reform Friday evening.

One of the more than 150 people who attended the rally had already benefitted from recent reform legislation.

Paul Yumbla was born in Ecuador and came to the United States with his parents when he was 3 years old. He's attending the University of Connecticut as a double major and, says he's "a dreamer."

Yumbla said he was an undocumented immigrant who is able to stay in the country with a sense of security and pursue his dream as a result of President Barack Obama's election-year order to stop deportations of many so-called DREAM Act individuals.

"It's made a huge change in my life," Yumbla said. "I feel like now the American Dream is within my grasp."

The DREAM Act — the name stands for Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors — is before Congress. It would put some on the path to eventual citizenship who had come to the U.S. as children and are studying, or have at least a high school diploma or a GED, if they meet certain conditions.

Kat Fisher, a community organizer for Citizen Action of New York, said that's the way it ought to be for the nation's 11 million "aspiring Americans" — the way it was for her grandparents who immigrated from Italy.

Fisher criticized Rep. Chris Gibson, R-Kinderhood, saying he has yet to take a stand on comprehensive reform. "Sometimes, representatives of mostly rural areas can have a one-dimensional point of view on this issue," she said.

Gibson could not be reached for comment Friday evening.

Bernard Daisley, a Poughkeepsie management consultant, said he is concerned that too many people have forgotten that America is "a land of immigrants, and for us to change that would be to destroy the fabric the country was built on."